Help - need storage solutions

[jazzbass]

OK, it's finally reached the point where my current method of storing SAKs in my collection isn't cutting it anymore. It was good to about 300 SAKs, which I thought was a ridiculous amount (and it is) that I'd never hit. I'm at about 350 right now.  How do you guys with large collections store them?

[Threeme2189]

Chakoooooooooooo!!!
Help the guy out

[AHB]

Maybe there's something here? 

Click: How do you guys store your multitools?

[ICanFixThat]

My collection is in major disarray.  Someone on SOSAK recommened Plano Storage Systems a while back, and they seem to work great for knives without boxes.  They have a number of different styles though.

http://www.planomolding.com/

[Pacu]

DaveK has a nice setup and Chako too.

[Chako]

My storage solution is a little insane. I went out and bought a chest and cabinet from the local Sears. Then I ran out of room and had to buy another.  Multi-tools in one, SAKs and some multi-tool overflow in the other.



Plenty of room if you select the deeper toolboxes.

[Grant Lamontagne]

I'm in the same boat- I have some in tackle boxes, some in parts bins, some in drawers, many floating around loosely on my desk and so on.  Then there are the ones that are in boxes that currently live in a medium sized plastic tote.

Ideally I like Chako's idea, but those tool chests can be somewhat pricey, so it's far from an idea solution for me. 

Setups like these:



are a good temporary solution- they can be had fairly cheaply and are often stackable.  I have two of them myself, one with 60 small drawers and another with 30 small drawers, two medium ones and one large one.  These help with knives in boxes, provided the box isn't too big.

A tackle box is also a good, mobile but still temporary type solution.  Most folks should be familiar with mine by now:



I also have some Rubbermaid chest of drawers similar to these:



But they are overflowing with boxed knives as well.



I am hoping to build a display case sometime soon that will allow me to put many of my knives on semi-permanent display, which should free up lots of space in various drawers and boxes.

If cost was no option, I would shoot for something like this:



But the one in that picture probably costs about as much as Chako's two Craftsman setups!

Def

[AHB]

I think Jaydar has the most beautiful solution: 

Click: http://forum.multitool.org/index.php/topic,24253.msg444285.html#msg444285

[jaydar]

I think its a one off though we found it in a second-hand shop it had come out of an old leather factory, it actually splits into 7 parts and you can put the sections together as you please

A few extra photos







On one showing my big swiss army knife

[Reinier]

Very nice, jaydar

[Chako]

I like that cabinet jaydar. Sadly, I wouldn't have enough room with that.

[Sparky415]

Very nice, jaydar

+1 

[Pacu]

Sears has these 2 drawer for 29.99 this week

[jazzbass]

Thanks for the ideas, guys. Chako, I've seen you tool chests posted before and was thinking of going that route. Unfortunately that would confine the collection to the basement (my wife puts up with a lot, but toolboxes in the living room would be too much I'm afraid).

My storage solution so far has been Plano 3701 boxes - which worked great at first. 1" thick and holds 15 knives each in their own compartment. They'll fit knives up SwissChamp width, so everything except XLT and bigger. The problem is that for 350 knives, that's 24 containers, and I'm running out of room to store them, plus expansion will soon be an issue. Here's my current storage solution:



Fits 24 containers, which I'm now at the limit of. The other issue with this is getting the boxes at the bottom of the 13 box stack is not fun, but that could be solved by building some shelving in.

All that said - Jaydar's solution is simply phenomenal. This is exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for (to be honest, this thread was partially inspired by Jaydar's pics in another thread). This is nice enough that something like that could be kept in the corner of the living room, but with plenty of room for future expansion. If I count right, just the thin drawers alone will hold 512 knives - and there is more room after that. I love the modular idea as well.

So I think the next step is to draw up some plans for a storage chest and build something very similar to to. Thanks to all for the input.

[Chako]

You will have to show pictures of the finished product once you are done.   

[jazzbass]

OK, stage 1 of my solution is now complete.

After seeing Jaydar's solutions, I wanted to build something similar on a smaller scale. The reality is with work and family, I have no time for a project of that size right now. So I tried to find another solution that would increase the storage density of my collection (more knives in a smaller area), allow it to expand, and allow me to one day make a nice furniture piece for it. Looking around, I found these Bisley Multidrawer steel cabinets at The Container Store. 10 drawers, each drawer is 14.5" x 9.25" and about 1.75" deep. Nice solid construction and the drawers are fully removable - perfect. These are small and modular enough that I can build them into an armoire or into the regular cabinets I'm putting in my home office. I bought three:



Now, I was very happy to see that the Plano 3701 containers I was using actually fit perfectly in the drawers. That would have been great, but the 3701 only hold 15 knives and wastes a lot of space. 30 drawers x 15 per drawer = 450 total storage, which is unfortunately not enough. I looked and couldn't find any good divider solution that would maximize storage space, so I decided to build my own.

I calculated that each drawer could hold 23 knives total if they were arranged into two rows of 10 horizontally and one row of three vertically. So I cut a LOT of wood and made up 30 of these:



Line the bottom of each section with some felt so the knives don't get scratched, insert into the drawers and fill:



And done. Each drawer can now hold up to 23 knives, so I now can expand to 690 total. I usually organize these by date of manufacture, so having so much more space means I can leave spaces in every drawer to fill as I add items to my collection.

[Chako]

That looks great. 

[Neil]

Now that's a great solution  

And nice woodwork, it must have taken an age to make all those dividers!

[nsa-x-file]

Looks really good.

[AHB]

Very classy..

[Herman]

Very nice!! Now show us a picture of each drawer... 

[Threeme2189]

That's a very nice design!

[Sidhartha]

Very nice!! Now show us a picture of each drawer... 

+1 

[jazzbass]

Thanks for all the comments, guys. So far it's worked out better than I hoped. I even have enough room left to make a special inserts for things like the battle series collection, large (XLT, etc) knives.

And nice woodwork, it must have taken an age to make all those dividers!

It did take a while. Each one has a base, two long pieces, 3 medium, and 12 short: 18 pieces per divider. Times 30 = 540 different pieces of wood to cut and glue together.

Very nice!! Now show us a picture of each drawer... 

That would take forever! Maybe I'll start posting the "drawer of the week" 

[ironraven]

Most impressive- I'm guessing you used a jig to hold everything when you glued the trays?

Only change I'd make is space for labels on each one. 

[jazzbass]

Most impressive- I'm guessing you used a jig to hold everything when you glued the trays?

I made 4 jigs so I could assemble 4 trays at a time. Real simple - assemble the divider pieces in the jig upside down, glue on the base, flip and clamp. Here's a pic of two dividers clamped after glue up. From the bottom: plywood clamping base, divider tray, jig, divider tray, jig:

Only change I'd make is space for labels on each one. 

There's room - I designed that in. If you're going to be OCD, go all they way 

[JRAmmon]

Just so everyone knows: I will provide overflow storage for your SAK collection at no charge to you... at my house! 

Jazzbass... love your solutions, especially the fact you made it with your own hands.

[Zag]

Here is my solution to the problem:
Jewellery trays.

[Neil]

Perk of the job?

It does look like a nice solution

[Zag]

Perk of the job?

unfortunately not 


the advantage is that these trays are stackable. i have around 200 knives in them and they don't take space at all.